CLRI May 2012

Contemporary Literary Review India May 2012
Editorial May 2012	eBook Reading Devices by Khurshid Alam In the last month’s editorial I talked about the growing space of electronic media. Realizing the growth of electronic presence... >>> Read in Full
Poems	Three Poems by Glen Sorestad Higgledy-Piggledy Just Before Dark Southern Sunrise  >>> Read in Full
	Two Poems by Catherine Noonan A Night Safe  >>> Read in Full
	Two Poems by Dr. Girish Ramesh Kute Gold Dust Pinky  >>> Read in Full
	Two Poems by Aditya Shankar Eyebrows Slightly Longer Than Reality  >>> Read in Full
	Three Ekphrastic Poems by Neil Ellman Mirror at Midnight II Modest George Inesco Onement III  >>> Read in Full
Short Story	Love Wins Out by S. Krishnamoorthy Aithal Surprisingly, the truce brokered by Madhav between factions and interest groups—some trying to protect Rushdie and others aiding and abetting the apostate’s assassination—held for many years. >>> Read in Full
	Even the Beggar Chooses by Khurshid Alam Every morning I stood at the Bamboo Villa bus stop in central Calcutta for my office, a beggar at the footpath used to salute me in gesture.  >>> Read in Full
Criticism	This Promising Age: A Critical Analysis by Dr. Dalip Kumar Khetarpal Poetry, which makes its appeal through heightened language, has restricted audience, especially in the new era of science and technology. >>> Read in Full
	Ethnicity and the Rhetoric of Difference by Mridula Kashyap Set in the backdrop of the Bodo society, Janil Kr. Brahma and Katindra Swargiary’s short stories “Dumphao’s Phitha” and “Hongla Pondit” respectively reflect the aspects of nationalistic strife undertaken by the Bodo people...  >>> Read in Full
Arts	Arts by Ivan de Monbrison Two arts pieces by Ivan Morison  >>> Read in Full
Book Review	Review on Sonnet Mondal's Diorama of Three Diaries by Dr. Sudesh Sinha Most poetry in the poetry books written by poets in India in the past few years can be mainly put into two categories.  >>> Read in Full
CLRI in Digital Formats	CLRI is released in more than 10 digital formats and is available with almost all eStores worldwide to suit readers from all walks of life. Buy digital editions with: Smashwords, Amazon, and Pothi.
Call for Submission	CLRI wants to add some more columns to its issues so CLRI seeks submission in poetry, stories, arts, photography, designing, modeling, film reviews, book reviews, essays, criticism etc.
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Lost in Seattle    by Bruce L Dodson                                 Buy Lost in Seattle from Amazon.com	Lost in Seattle - A novel that traces social turmoil that started with economic recession in America in  2008 and impacted the society for ever.

Our Literary Partners
	Wasafiri New Writing Prize 2012 Categories: Poetry, Fiction and Life Writing - 3000 words max or 5 poems max. Deadline - 5pm GMT on 27 July 2012. Prize - £300 per category and publication in Wasafiri. The Wasafiri New Writing Prize is open to anyone worldwide who has not published a complete book and we are looking for creative submissions in one of three categories: POETRY, FICTION and LIFE WRITING. The fee for entry varies depending on the number of categories you wish to enter and ranges from UK Sterling £6 to £15. The closing date is 5pm GMT on 27 July 2012. The winners will receive £300 each and their work will be published in Wasafiri.   Submission is through filling an entry form. Download the Entry Form from: www.wasafiri.org/wasafiri-new-writing-prize.asp. However you can send us an email for enquiries. Always address your email to wasafiri@open.ac.uk and keep writersdeskinfo@yahoo.co.in in loop. Visit: http://www.wasafiri.org/
JKC College is organizing 5th International Poetry Festival in collaboration with Contemporary Literary Review India The 5th International Poetry Festival invites writers and poets from all over the world. We aim to promote writers and their writings so we accept all forms, formats, and styles. However we give preference to innovative styles in poetry. For details, check at: Literary Partners.

eBook Reading Devices by Khurshid Alam

eBook Reading Devices by Khurshid Alam

In the last month’s editorial I talked about the growing space of electronic media. Realizing the growth of electronic presence, electronic manufacturers are deigning devices that help us in reading books on the electronic gadgets as well, so eBook reading devices have been introduced. An eBook reading device is an electronic gadget specially designed for reading books, journals, and magazines available in electronic media. It is a portable gadget very much similar to a mobile device or tablet computer. eBook readers may be basically of two types – eBook readers powered by e-paper technology that helps to display the text even in very bright sunlight. And the second is non-paper technology based. Many other devices such as smartphones, iPhone, Laptop, and other non e-paper technology based devices fall in the second category. Most of the eReaders are enriched with grayscale levels, audio formats, image formats, text-to-speech feature, apps, email, Internet surfing to mention a few. EBook reading devices are specially designed with “a faster screen capable of higher refresh rates which makes them more suitable for interaction.”

Now-a-days eBook readers are being trimmed for having good storage capacity, supporting color text and images, and at more affordable prices. With some reservation with color text and images the books are being formatted in a certain format but with color supporting technology, the books and periodicals will be as luxurious as they can be in hard paper.

EBook readers provide us high convenience. We need not go to the book shop instead we simply log in to the online book portals, pay for a book and download it on the device and read it wherever we are on the go.

Imagine you are travelling on a long journey on a train and you want to read a book of your choice. You just log in to the website on your Laptop in the train, make a payment through paper money, download a book, and start reading it. You enjoy the valuable time. You can also download many eBooks available for free as well or you can log in to the online libraries if you are a member or want to become one, and read the books. Interestingly all the eReaders have features to manage books that you borrow from the online libraries.

Typically eBook readers have great capacity to store hundreds of books. This means you can actually carry a library of books along with you without the weight that can trouble you. Wow! As you read a book on the eBook reader, you can highlight your favorite lines, quotations, and make clips and notes without the use of papers and pen.

Some of the popular eReaders are Libre Ebook Reader Pro (Aluratek), Kindle devices (Amazon.com), Nook devices (Barnes & Noble), Cybook Odyssey devices (Bookeen), eGriver (Condor Technology), Agebook eBook Reader (EBS Technology), BeBook devices (Endless ideas), eSlick (Foxit Software), WISEreader devices (Hanvon), Hanlin devices (JinKe), Kobo devices (Kobo Inc.), Boox devices (Onyx International), PocketBook devices (PocketBook), Papyrus (Samsung), and Reader devices (Sony) among others.

Khurshid Alam,

Editor, CLRI, May 2012.

Forthcoming Topics

Best Selling eWriters

India’s Stand in Digital Publishing

Challenges in Digital Publishing

Book Formats for Digital Publishing

Three Poems by Glen Sorestad

Three Poems by Glen Sorestad

Higgledy-Piggledy

I have long sought an opportunity to use

higgledy-piggledy in a poem. My motivation

is unclear, even to me, but perhaps it has

something to do with the sound quality

of the word, a dactylic roller-coaster ride.

Nothing of this has much to do with denotation,

whatever the word’s original sense and usage

might have been, so much as it does with

the exquisite feel of the word in the mouth.

Or perhaps it’s the unexpected comic element

the word injects into any consideration --

the way it counter-balances the ponderous

seriousness over-afflicting most poetry. After all,

it would be hard to be convinced by any

declaration of love which somehow moved

towards a higgledy-piggledy climax.

Come to think of it, not many other poets

I’ve read employ higgledy-piggledy much.

Jiggery-pokery, maybe.  Perhaps we poets

all tend to take ourselves far too seriously.

So I’m resolving, here and now, to make

higgledy-piggledy a poetic priority.

I may have to slip it into the piece

in some unexpected and ingenious way,

the word clearly having its limitations.

But isn’t that what poetry is all about?

Just Before Dark

I am the camp’s only occupant—

an unfamiliar scenario for me,

but not disquieting—all the cabins

around me, dark and silent as a night

graveyard. The staff who work here

have done their day’s tasks and left.

The sun has dropped and darkness

creeps four-footed through the woods,

as I step from my cabin for a brief walk

before the last light is gone.

A white-tail doe watches me stride

the well worn route and as I near her,

she steps silently from the path to fade

behind an arras of yellow hazel nut foliage;

a smaller deer, perhaps her offspring,

comes from behind a cabin and bounces

after the doe. A third deer appears,

then there are no more. None of the trio

are deterred at all from their browsing.

I am merely a temporary curiosity,

a brief interruption in their evening.

Night wraps its cover over all of us.

Southern Sunrise

It’s all so obvious, really. The rational part of me

recognizes and knows as November wanes

the light of day too shrinks, dawn arriving later

like a hard-won promise and darkness

pressing its advantage earlier every afternoon.

It’s all so familiar, this annual cycle the mind

accepts, though seldom with willingness.

Yet somehow one morning in November

every year, I look out the eastern window

and there is a sudden surge of wonder

that gives the heart a quick lurch

when I realize the sun is rising

far to the south of where I think it ought.

Say what you will, the mind may accept,

but the heart has its own measure.

Author’s Bio: Glen Sorestad is a well known Canadian poet who has published more than twenty volumes of his poetry till date. His poems have appeared in over 50 anthologies and textbooks, as well as having been translated into French, Finnish, Norwegian, Spanish, Slovenian and Afrikaans. His latest book of poems, A Thief of Impeccable Taste (Sand Crab Books, 2011) is published as a bilingual (English/Spanish) edition. Sorestad is a Life Member of the League of Canadian Poets and is a Member of the Order of Canada. He lives in Saskatoon on the Canadian plains.

Two Poems by Catherine Noonan

Two Poems by Catherine Noonan

A Night

Tired as if about to die but

Sleep, any sleep without you rests nothing and so

I wake soundly all night

A pounding missing of you taking me into the dawn

Where I look off and see only my own misery and yet

Curse when someone interrupts my melancholy.

Safe

Indifference to you will never come from me

I must fake it, walk nonchalantly by when really

I couldn’t care more

You will always be there; felt

A sad silence or a terrible truth

And although I pray daily to be freed from loving what has ended

I am too well bonded with not letting go and it is this

That makes you never forgotten.

Author’s Bio: Catherine Noonan is an Australia-based poet.

Two Poems by Dr. Girish Ramesh Kute

Two Poems by Dr. Girish Ramesh Kute

Gold Dust

A spill of gold dust emblazoned in the shy dusk,

washed in a sable attire as she takes over,

dull sapphirine corundum sprinkling mists,

gleaming in the barely lit moon.

a melee of these azures, ebonies, gold-shower,

as I stroll the midnight street,

the boulevard of lost generation,

relived with the stroke of the bell,

of an unseen basilica,

the winds that push me back in time,

through the golden age of Pablo and Stein,

where everything inspired assertiveness,

every module of air breathed rich, exotic,

and rains,

that wetted the soul, and not just mere mortal,

i visited my peace, my ambition—

to stay entranced in my surrealism, forever.

Pinky

Humming through the dawned paddy fields,

As she leaves the pail bearing spinsters behind,

Uniformed, hair pony tailed with a red ribbon,

Swaying her bag, hop, step and jump,

Steps towards literacy, leaps towards light,

She doesn’t think that forward,

She thinks of the mid-day meal in store for her today,

Of the new friends she made yesterday,

Of the new anklets she is wearing,

Of the new slate she will write on,

She thinks of the song the teacher sang,

She remembers the tune but minces the words,

She thinks of her class under the peepal tree,

Of the prayer she says before and after class,

Asking god to make her country prosperous,

She is excited, she is happy,

A big smile on her face,

Keep smiling Pinky.

But there are a million Pinkies,

Nipped in the bud,

Tomb-ed in the womb,

Not as lucky as this Pinky,

Fail to see the light of the day.

Stop female foeticide,

Help Pinky.

Author’s Bio: Dr. Girish Ramesh Kute, is a 23-year-old doctor from Mumbai and is the author of Poems- Mon Premier Travail. Has been published in various magazines, e-zines, literary journals such as Fried Eye, frogcroon, epigram, Enchanting Verses, Taj Mahal Review, Fancy Realms etc. He was a FIVE time Voices net international poetry contest finalist of eight entries. His work has been translated into Telugu which featured in The Deccan Chronicle’s special edition Kavya Jagathi twice, which features poets from all around the world.